A man who'd been recording a tutorial video on how to safely install a viewing window in a pond went horribly wrong when a glass panel weighing 28 stone fell and almost beheaded him.
Carl Drennan was fitting the pane of glass for a customer in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on 30 October when 'complacency almost killed him'.
The 36-year-old man had been kneeling near the pane of glass when it tipped out of its frame and fell towards him, prompting his customer to shout 'look out' and try to stop it from falling, but he was too far away.
Carl was hit in the face by the heavy pane of glass as it pushed him back, but was fortunately able to push it off him.
In the end, he was able to get away with just a swollen ankle and a cut nose.
Carl was lucky not to be more hurt, and admitted that the mistake was his after he forgot to re-add some of the clamps holding the pane of glass in place after applying sealant.
He said that if he'd been somewhere just a little bit different it might have hit him in the neck and killed him (Kennedy News and Media)
He runs a firm which teaches people how to install their own ponds and so had been planning on using the video for instructional purposes to show how to fit it safely, but he very nearly ended up with much more grisly footage.
He said he'd been 'one foot away from being beheaded like a scene from The Omen', a horror movie where a glass pane falls off a truck and leaves one of the characters without a head.
"I've probably done it hundreds if not a thousand times so you just don't respect the danger at times," he said of the accident.
"It kind of humbled me because I've got a kid now and if I stood a foot further back or lower, it could have come down on my neck and killed me easily.
"When I pushed the bottom of the glass in, the top came out and that caused it to fall so before I knew it I was on the floor."
Left with injuries to his face and ankle, Carl said he knew it was very nearly much worse. (Kennedy News and Media)
Carl said he could feel blood dripping down his nose and was 'worried it had gone all wonky again' as he'd broken his nose before, and said that on his way home he 'felt so lucky because it could have been a lot worse'.
After the 28 stone pane of glass fell on him, he had to spend about 10 minutes waiting for the shock to die down and needed a colleague to drive him home because his ankle had swollen up so much.
While his customer rushed over to help him, Carl is glad the guy was too far away to get to the tipping pane before it fell as he said the guy might have fallen with the glass and made things worse.
The video he'd been filming had been intended for instructional purposes and Carl did decide to use it for that, posting it online with the caption 'complacency kills'.
He admitted that he'd forgotten to replace the clamps and that pushing the bottom of the pane had popped it out at the top, so he'll be making a point of remembering to replace the clamps in future window installations.
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